TAMPA — The national spotlight is aimed directly at Tampa, with thousands of journalists in town for the Republican National Convention.

But it's what they won't see that has some community activists concerned.

West Tampa, East Tampa, Sulphur Springs, Robles Park. Neighborhoods filled with crime, poverty and foreclosures — untouched by the money and glamour that accompanies the RNC.

"This is what the city doesn't want the media to see," said event organizer Kelly Benjamin, who put together a media tour Saturday of "the other side of Tampa."

While the city spent more than $2.7 million on landscaping work downtown and along Bayshore Boulevard ahead of the convention, low-income areas were largely ignored, Benjamin said.

In East Tampa, where the tour began, empty storefronts and weeds dominate the view.

"There's just no economic development," said tour leader and Robles Park resident Life Malcolm, who was with the media caravan as it left Ybor City and headed north.

Businesses that are open include beauty salons, liquor stores and small grocery markets. Dozens of others have boarded windows.

Even the Tampa Police Department's District 3 headquarters, built in 2007, is an example of community dollars that could have been better spent, Malcolm said.

"Instead of investing money in storefronts or new businesses, the city builds a police station," he said. "We're already the most policed area in the city. If more policing was the answer, we wouldn't have this problem."

Young people are particularly affected, Malcolm said.

"When they leave their high school campus, they don't see opportunity, all they see is hopelessness," he said.

The problems are just as acute in Sulphur Springs, where overgrown weeds on some streets hide entire homes.

"There are pockets that are really nice," said Ed Ross, founder of Community Stepping Stones, a nonprofit learning center. "Other areas look like war zones."

Every so often, city officials and politicians visit the area, said Yolanda Edmond, a Sulphur Springs resident. "But they don't do anything after they get here."

A few blocks south, in Seminole Heights, a group of activists decided to tackle the problem on their own.

The Poor People Economic Human Rights Campaign, founded by Green Party vice presidential candidate Cheri Honkala, took over a foreclosed home. A group of activists cleaned up the inside, mowed the lawn and moved a homeless couple in.

The group has no legal claim on the house, which is owned by Chase Bank. Still, Honkala said it's the right thing to do.

"It's really an archaic idea that men, women and children are sleeping on the streets when there are so many abandoned properties," Honkala said. "This is a modern-day underground railroad."

What happens if authorities step in and charge the new tenants with trespassing?

"We will challenge that," Honkala said. "Sometimes we are given concessions. Sometimes we go to jail."

PUNGGYE-RI, North Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made good on his promise to demolish his country’s nuclear test site, which was formally closed in a series of huge explosions Thursday as a group of foreign journalists looked on. The explosi...

President Donald Trump’s decision to block his Twitter followers for their political views is a violation of the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying that Trump’s effort to silence his critics is not permissible under the U.S. Con...

TAMPA — All those public watch parties during the Tampa Bay Lightning’s postseason run? And how about the rally at Joe Chillura Courthouse Square Park with the big white Lightning logo spray-painted on the grass?
You need police to prote...

Explain this to me:
In the world of partisan politics, how is being an independent thinker a bad thing?
When it comes to general elections, we seem to like rogues and mavericks. We want outsiders and swamp scrubbers. Folks appreciate a good finger-...

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump lashed out Sunday at "the World’s most expensive Witch Hunt," trashing a new report in the New York Times that said an emissary representing the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates offered help...

Former Education Secretary Arne Duncan pushed a radical idea on Twitter: Parents should pull their children out of school until elected officials pass stricter gun control laws.His tweet came hours after a shooting rampage at a Houston-area high scho...

WASHINGTON - China offered to boost its annual purchases of U.S. products by "at least $200 billion" Friday as two days of talks aimed at averting an open breach between the two countries ended in Washington, a top White House adviser said.Larry Kudl...

TAMPA — A concert organizer is accusing Hillsborough County Commission candidate Elvis Piggott of falsifying a contract and prompting the headline act to pull out of a gospel show.In a lawsuit filed in Hillsborough Circuit Court, Corey Curry claims h...

WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Thursday to confirm Gina Haspel as the next CIA director after several Democrats were persuaded to support her despite lingering concerns about her role in the brutal interrogation of suspected terrorists captured after ...

WASHINGTON — Republicans are pushing for a speedy confirmation vote as early as Thursday after the Senate intelligence committee endorsed President Donald Trump’s CIA nominee Gina Haspel to lead the spy agency. But opponents concerned about Haspel’s ...